How to Rent a Negro
damali ayo

Publisher Comments
A hilarious and satirical look at race relations that is almost too close for comfort, this pseudo-guidebook gives both renters and rentals "much-needed" advice and tips on technique. Reframing actual stories, techniques, requests, and responses gathered from the author's more than 30 years of research and experience, tips are provided in step-by-step outlines for renters to get the most for their money, and how rentals can become successful and wealthy, what they should wear, and topics of conversation to avoid. The book also serves up photo-dramatizations of some of the popular approaches covered in the book, handy tip-boxes, frequently asked questions for renters and rentals, a "How do I know if I'm being rented?" quiz, a glossary of important terms, and "quickie" insta-rentals for those who need to rent on the go. Punctuated by quotes from former renters, and featuring rental diaries based on real encounters, this satire shocks and amuses, presenting a strikingly stark mirror of human relationships.

About the Author
damali ayo's web site, www.rent-a-negro.com, has been featured in media outlets including ABCNews.com, the Chicago Tribune, Harpers, Salon.com, VillageVoice.com, and the Washington Post. A conceptual artist, she explores social issues through visual art and performance. She has received international acclaim and has been interviewed on the radio by Brian Lehrer, Joe Madison, Mancow Muller, and Tavis Smiley, among others.

Whores on the Hill
Colleen Curran

Milwaukee's very own Colleen Curran will return to her hometown on Friday, November 11 for a reading at Broad Vocabulary!!!

Publisher Comments
The girls of Sacred Heart Holy Angels eye the good dancers at the all-ages club Metropolis. They waste afternoons at the mall, check out parties on the lake, burn through candid, casual sex.

Everybody calls them the “Whores on the Hill”, but they don't care.

It is the mid-'80s and they go to the last all-girls' school in Milwaukee, where innocence is scarce and happiness is something to grabbed at in the backseat of a fast car.

Meet exuberant, uninhibited Astrid, her nervy, troubled friend Juli and Thisbe, the shy, ascetic newcomer. They are fifteen years old. And they believe they can take on the world, no matter what it calls them.

But when euphoric promiscuity mixes with a series of dangerous, deadly pranks, their world at Sacred Heart Holy Angels can never be the same.

About the Author
Colleen Curran grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she attended Divine Savior Holy Angels. Her stories have been published in places like Jane and The Dictionary of Failed Relationships. She now lives in Richmond, Virginia. Whores on the Hill is her first novel.

Embroideries
Marjane Satrapi

Publisher Comments
From the best-selling author of Persepolis comes this gloriously entertaining and enlightening look into the sex lives of Iranian women. Embroideries gathers together Marjane's tough-talking grandmother, stoic mother, glamorous and eccentric aunt and their friends and neighbors for an afternoon of tea drinking and talking. Naturally, the subject turns to love, sex and the vagaries of men.

As the afternoon progresses, these vibrant women share their secrets, their regrets and their often outrageous stories about, among other things, how to fake one's virginity, how to escape an arranged marriage, how to enjoy the miracles of plastic surgery and how to delight in being a mistress. By turns revealing and hilarious, these are stories about the lengths to which some women will go to find a man, keep a man or, most importantly, keep up appearances.

Full of surprises, this introduction to the private lives of some fascinating women, whose life stories and lovers and will strike us as at once deeply familiar and profoundly different from our own, is sure to bring smiles of recognition to the faces of women everywhere — and to teach us all a thing or two.

About the Author
Marjane Satrapi was born in 1969 in Rasht, Iran. She grew up in Tehran, where she studied at the Lycée Français before leaving for Vienna and then going to Strasbourg to study illustration. She currently lives in Paris, where her illustrations appear regularly in newspapers and magazines. She is also the author of several children's books.